A Page From The Dictator’s Playbook
In a display of complete and utter disrespect for the rule of law, and a manifestation of the abject lawlessness that has clearly consumed this administration, the Department of Justice has ‘dropped charges’ against Gen. Michael Flynn.
Many of us in the legal sphere wonder how it makes any kind of sense for a prosecutorial entity to drop the charges against a criminal defendant who has already pled guilty to them.
But then, this is Donald Trump and his DOJ fixer, William Barr, who have no intention of functioning like public servants in the world’s oldest democracy.
Instead, they’re taking a page out of the contemporary dictator’s playbook, which says to absolve political allies and arrest political enemies…
You needn’t be a rocket scientist to surmise that the Trump/Barr plan may well entail an attempt to criminalize political enemies and deligitimize, or neutralize, political opposition in the name of ‘national security’ or ‘national defense’, and have people like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Adam Schiff arrested and detained….
You can already hear the Trump rally chants of “lock him/them up”.
‘The problem, of course, is unlike places like Russia, North Korea, and China, where such nefarious political activity is routine, the Constitution represents an impediment and inconvenience that the political leaders Trump most admires don’t have in their way.
The solution for the Trump/Barr dictatorial conspiracy might be to take the advice of people like Putin, and simply ignore constitutional constraints altogether….
This may seem a bit far fetched, but try to keep in mind that this is Donald Trump we’re talking about.
These two imperious imbeciles are dumb enough to go after Barack Obama for being President while black.
The truly sickening, and supremely dangerous, aspect of this is the fact that about 40% of the voting populace would be in support or in favor of such idiotic lunacy….
That kind of illness makes the coronavirus look like a case of schoolyard sniffles in comparison.
05/11/2020 @ 12:33 am
Trump has always treated the Constitution as an inconvenience
05/11/2020 @ 1:31 am
That’s precisely why I believe that it’s a fair bet that Trump may have to be forcibly removed from office after the election, the result of which he will undoubtedly attempt to invalidate.
05/12/2020 @ 11:54 am
Ron Powell,
Our votes will remove Trump from office. Our military may have to remove him from the building.
05/12/2020 @ 3:54 pm
Art, I fear that you may be spot on…
05/11/2020 @ 9:28 am
I heard Barr say something pretty disturbing in a recent interview. When asked how history will record his ‘Flynn decision,’ he responded “well, history is always written by the winners.” That pretty much says Trump isn’t the only administration figure who knows it will not go well should these guys ever have to leave office. Putin is, by the way, is in the very same boat. He knows he is in very deep shit should he ever find himself a civilian again.
05/12/2020 @ 7:50 am
Although history, as ‘written by the winners’, may well be a compilation of facts, albeit ‘alternative facts’ as recorded by this crowd of sycophants and cultists, it is not always a recitation or articulation of the truth…
05/12/2020 @ 9:42 am
Nice you decided to use a Meet the Press quote their news department admits was meant to be misleading.
05/12/2020 @ 8:22 pm
“Bitey, you know nothing about the justice system. You say you were a cop and I am sure your liberal buddies flogged you for years for that, but you know literally nothing about the justice system. I know people who have plead guilty to crimes they were innocent of because they were worried about going to trial and the time they can get.“—-Robert Pannier
First of all, whether I know a little about the justice system, or a lot, that is entirely irrelevant. For starters, Flynn had a trial. He wasn’t “worried about going to trial.” He was in trial when he pleaded. Next, Flynn was worried about serving time. He was caught on the facts. The facts were not disputed. The facts are still not disputed. Your weird argument/accusation makes no mention of those. Next, due process and rule of law is a liberal principle. Accountability to the law and the electorate are of liberalism. Ronald Powell’s title is “A Page from the Dictator’s Playbook”. It is wholly consistent with liberalism to administer justice based upon the law, and not based upon one’s connections. The result (so far) is based upon Flynn’s connection to Trump. That’s what dictators do. Next, my problem with what Flynn did has nothing to do with who he worked for. I made no mention of it. The trial had nothing to o do with it. Flynn’s confessions had nothing to do with it. You are the one making an argument based upon motivations that you do not know. What’s more, Trump himself said that he fired him because he lied to Pence. Do you claim Trump himself felt that way because Flynn worked for Trump? Trump said he lied, Robert?
Let’s see, your bonafides of your knowledge of the justice system is interesting. You “know a guy” who made a plea to avoid a trial. That’s an interesting confession. You know sketchy people who, while innocent, surely, want to avoid trial and plead anyway. That’s a fantastic certification for your superior knowledge of the justice system.
Socrates was once charged with two crimes. The crimes were impiety against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of youth. The penalty was death. Socrates, being the important, well-known person that he was, was offered a deal of sorts. He was told that he would not be put to death if he recanted his impious statements against the pantheon. (This deal was made outside of the court, like Flynn’s deal). Unlike Flynn, Socrates held to principle. Socrates said that the law was unjust and that he refused to recant. He made the existential choice to drink the hemlock, by his own hand, rather than go back on the principle. To make it simple for you, Socrates did not dispute the facts. Flynn did not dispute the facts. Socrates followed the law, even though an out was provided. Flynn skirted the law because of his connections. Liberalism, Robert, is holding to the principle of the rule of law, not absorbing the privilege of cronyism. Flynn’s situation was a result of Flynn’s conduct, and the law. That’s it. No one was out to get him. The FBI did not have a time machine to travel backwards and make what Flynn did and confessed to illegal. It was illegal first. Then Flynn did the crime. Then Flynn went to trial. Then Flynn confessed. It had nothing to do with Trump before the criminal act. The only aspect that involves Trump is his direction of the AG to drop the charges…after his plea. If you can make an argument about the justice system that does not involve my motivations, or “the FBI”, or whatever other bullshit you can find to throw, and simply stick with the facts, make that argument.
05/13/2020 @ 10:02 am
If you could read, you would see that I said I know PEOPLE. That is part of working the last 15 years in helping men and women getting out of prison. These are people who made mistakes and would like a chance to get their life together. Of course, to you “liberals,” they are sketchy. Liberals are all full of crap
People like you amaze me. You say all kinds of platitudes but are just a big phony (like Bernie Sanders). I have no doubt that you are likely a teacher or some form of academic. You know nothing of the real world.
05/13/2020 @ 3:26 pm
You question whether I can read, so you write me a response….AND assume I am some sort of academic. That’s precious.
“ I know people who have plead guilty to crimes they were innocent of because they were worried about going to trial…”— Robert Pannier
Ok, let’s skip over the literacy smear and go to something you actually wrote yourself. You said the above. Notice that you said that they plead to crimes that they were not guilty of. Now, you say “…{these are people who made mistakes and would like a chance to get their {lives} together…” So, which is it? First you say they’re innocent. Now you say “they made mistakes”…which means guilty.
You do an interesting thing there, Robert. First, when you were using the innocence angle to make an argument against Flynn’s treatment…as if innocence applies, which it does not. Then, you switch to an ad hominem angle to absurdly claim that I know nothing about the social justice system, and make some sort of connection to politics, which is also absurd.
Also, Robert, you mention helping ex-cons reconnect with their lives. The people who do that sort of thing professionally are largely social workers. That field is vastly populated with liberals…not conservatives. The desire to, and value of taking people released from prison and re-integrating them into society is a humanitarian principle. Kudos to you if you value that. I do as well. But, Robert, that is of liberalism. Conservatives are deterministic and social Darwinists. Philosophically, they tend to oppose reintegrating ex-cons into society. Conservatives also tend to oppose eliminating financial barriers to society which presently comprise the economic and legal injustices. You can’t bang on liberalism, and claim to promote help for underprivileged. That is a huge part of liberalism. You’re talking out of both sides of your ass.
Robert Flynn is not an oppressed person. He’s not a ex-con trying to re-entry society. He’s not some dude jammed up by the man, and railroaded into a plea because he essentially had a Hobson’s choice. Flynn is a retired Lt. General, and former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. He lied about representing Turkey, and he lied about his conversations with Russians, one of whom was the main recruiter for spies. That’s not getting caught at a traffic stop with a bag of weed, or caught stealing food to feed your family. Circumstances don’t just occur to place someone in a position like Flynn’s. It takes high position and deliberate acts. His guilty pleas were not an injustice. That’s fucking goofy. Leave goofy alone!
05/13/2020 @ 3:51 pm
Incidentally, Robert, “I know a guy” is a cliche about connections. The cliche is singular. I does not mean that I don’t know the difference between person and people. If someone says, ‘know what I mean, jelly bean’…they don’t actually think you’re a jelly bean. Know what I mean?
05/12/2020 @ 9:50 am
I have to admit, that I found this to be one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read:
“Many of us in the legal sphere wonder how it makes any kind of sense for a prosecutorial entity to drop the charges against a criminal defendant who has already pled guilty to them.”
According to the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys (NACDL), “many defendants plead guilty in part due to fear of what they call ‘the trial penalty.’”
On top of that, are you saying that prosecutors are always right? When they see that a judgment or prosecution against a defendant is 100 percent wrong they should continue to prosecute him or her anyway. That is beyond reprehensible. We know you are innocent, so let’s keep trying you anyway.
So, then you must agree that Koua Fong Lee should still be in jail? This is the guy who went to prison after he ran into three people and killed them. It was later discovered that his Toyota Camry had a defect that was completely responsible for the accident, yet the prosecutor was willing to let him out if he just plead guilty and she would give him time served.
You rail against racial injustice, but don’t give a crap about injustice in general. Do you have any idea how many black defendants are in prison, taking plea deals because they were afraid of the time they would receive if they went to trial? The answer is no, because your head is too far up your ass with hatred for Trump to see that this was a completely unjust prosecution in the first place.
You in the “legal sphere” need to learn better.
05/12/2020 @ 3:51 pm
You’re correct to suggest that ‘plea deals’ can often be flawed and result in the perpetration of an injustice.
However, when that occurs, and the plea deal is set aside by a judge, after the defendant has been convicted and sentenced, it is most often due to the discovery and introduction of exculpatory evidence, or a finding of blatant malfeasance on the part of the prosecution.
Nothing of the sort has taken place in this instance.
What Barr did here is to rewrite the ‘Mueller Report’ in such a way as to create the illusion of an escape hatch for Flynn.
Such a perversion has been eschewed and condemned by more than 2000 federal career attorneys who are undoubtedly in agreement with my assessment of the situation at hand…
I’ll take their evaluation as affirmation of the validity, veracity, integrity, and efficacy of my assertion over your knee-jerk reaction every time…
Keep drinking the Trump koolaid. Or, have you moved on to the Lysol cocktails and sunshine sandwiches your nitwit-in-chief has recommend as a defense against the Coronavirus ‘hoax’?
05/12/2020 @ 5:46 pm
Are you seriously going to say that a plot by the top people in the FBI to get this guy to lie so they can prosecute him is not malfeasance? Are you really going to make that argument? The last I knew, when the police create a situation so that a person will commit a crime that is called entrapment.
Again, I don’t give a crap about who he works for. This is wrong. The FBI is supposed to investigate matters, not create crimes. Keep that in mind though when someone you know is railroaded like that. Understand that when you allow that to happen to a guy like this, what chance do the rest of us have?
Let me add this as well. I don’t care if a million prosecutors thought letting this guy off was wrong. Prosecutors are never concerned with justice – they are concerned with convictions. These people are the worst of the legal profession, as pointed out by me in that case involved the Toyota Camry. This guy was 100 percent innocent, yet, the prosecutor was going to let him out if he plead guilty and just give him time served. PLEAD GUILT FOR SOMETHING HE WAS 100 PERCENT INNOCENT OF!!! Prosecutors are crap for the most part, so if they say something is wrong, you can be sure it is right.
05/13/2020 @ 10:31 am
“Are you seriously going to say that a plot by the top people in the FBI to get this guy to lie so they can prosecute him is not malfeasance?”
“The last I knew, when the police create a situation so that a person will commit a crime that is called entrapment.”
Lying to a government entity with the intention of having a material effect on the outcome of a government proceeding is perjury.
Perjury is a felony.
Flynn was lying when he failed to disclose his Russian and Turkish connections on the National Security documents he was required to file in connection with his appointment.
Flynn lied re his these connections and relationships during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Flynn lied to the Vice President during vetting interviews and conversations.
Flynn lied to the FBI when asked whether he had lied Re his foreign connections in any scenario, situation, or circumstance relative to his appointment as National Security Advisor.
That Flynn lied, and admitted doing so, are facts that are not in dispute.
Entrapment involves law enforcement agents enticing and enabling the commission of a crime the evidence of which is the subject/defendant taking affirmative action, or actually doing something in the furtherance of a criminal enterprise.
In as much as the felony crime of perjury does not entail or involve ‘doing something’, entrapment is not a valid,sufficient, or appropriate affirmative defense for being charged and convicted for that offense.
In short, you can’t ‘entrap’ a liar.
Hence the affirmative defense of ‘Entrapment’ is not available to a defendant charged with felony perjury.
05/12/2020 @ 4:14 pm
Pannier, this is a fascinating argument you make here. Fascinatingly absurd. What makes it so interesting is that it concerns race, guilty peas, actual guilt, jail time pending due process, and actual due process. I’ll be brief in taking your ridiculous argument apart.
1. General Flynn is a white man. He is a retired member of the military in a country with a white power base. He was working for the administration, and lied to cover for working for a foreign government. His job was as National Security Advisor, and his lie involved national security. (No part of your argument covered this fact). Part of the deal he tried to make involved denying a person of a member of (a) an ethnic minority To (b) due process, and (c) return him to a country where he would be killed (d) not in the interest of justice, but rather power.
2. Flynn pleaded guilty twice. Not once. Twice.
3. Flynn to this date, has not spent a single day in jail. The notion that he would plead guilty to avoid jail prior to receiving due process is moot. He was already not being incarcerated. Also, the notion that he would trade a guilty plea to be released from a false impression meant for the purpose of having the record reflect guilt is also moot…for the same reason. Your comparison here seems confused at best, and race baiting at worst. The comparison to a man convicted of vehicular homicide is not apt.
4. Flynn was acting as an agent for a foreign government, and registered after the fact. This is a matter of fact, and not a misinterpreted one. This was not the failure of some mechanism in Flynn’s effort to do the right thing. This was deception. Flynn’s expertise in the military involved intelligence. One can’t argue that he is some sort of naïf.
Beyond that, take into consideration a case where no prosecution was made, and no actions were taken by the presumed accused. The case is Hillary Clinton’s private server and the presumed handling of classified material. No transgressions were ever named. No evidence ever provided. No intelligence ever lost. Yet, who claimed that if he were in such a position, he would be “locked up” for such a set of circumstances? Wouldn’t you know it, it was Michael Flynn. The same Michael Flynn. He led a chant of “lock her up” in front of the Republican National Convention. The chant became part of the campaign. So, that seems to pass without mention, and this very comparable situation, given that it involves a participant in the accused rather than accuser position…gets not a single syllable. This chanting at the convention was contemporaneous with the events for which Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty twice. So, you find it ridiculous that a case is dropped for which there were two pleas of guilt…by a man who chanted for the prosecution of a person without due process. Flynn is the last person on the planet to be able to cry injustice. Oh, by the way, President Trump announced that Flynn was fired for lying to the VP. Fascinating how you never mentioned that either.
Oh, let me guess, you didn’t say any of that. It was that other Robert Pannier who you blame your goofy mistakes on.
05/12/2020 @ 5:42 pm
Bitey, you know nothing about the justice system. You say you were a cop and I am sure your liberal buddies flogged you for years for that, but you know literally nothing about the justice system. I know people who have plead guilty to crimes they were innocent of because they were worried about going to trial and the time they can get. The system is stacked against the defendant, and when you have the top brass in the FBI out to get you, you are screwed.
I don’t care what color someone is. Wrong is wrong. You are caught up in him working for Trump. I don’t give a crap about that. Wrong is wrong. This is another example of liberal hypocrisy.
05/12/2020 @ 11:51 am
I concur 100%.